Jean Rabe - The Silver Stair

"Are you warm enough for this?"

She nodded. The red wool cloak the knight wore this morning, coupled with the thick padding under her armor, kept the cold at bay. "I just wish I knew who the dastards are. An enemy you know is easier to fight."

Gair decided to change the subject as he steered her past Jasper and Redstone at the dwarven tent community. Both had their hair trimmed oddly short, and their skin was still terribly blistered from the fire. The smell of roast pork and the crackling of eggs cooking was rousing all the builders. They were chattering in their gravelly voices, seemingly oblivious to the human and elf.

"Jasper's going to build a tower for the knights you intend to station here. Maybe you should talk with him to make sure it will be big enough."

Her eyes flashed with a hint of anger. "Is all of this really necessary?" She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, then opened them again and took in the camp. Though the tents and lean-tos were much closer together now than before the blizzard and the fire, it still looked the same: a ragtag community of dreamers who had bundled up their hopes and worldly possessions and who had hitched themselves to the aging Hero of the Lance. "Why would someone of Goldmoon's age undertake something like this? She used to be a priestess of Mishakal. This"-she waved her hand to indicate the settlement-"this goes against the gods, and it goes against all my principles to protect her."

"But that's what you're doing-protecting her."

No answer. Her eyes were fixed on two bundled-up boys doing their best to add extra tent stakes to their canvas home. They were fighting with the frozen ground, and neither showed any indication of giving up.

Gair shrugged. "Camilla, I believe in Goldmoon. But maybe I don't always agree with her. I would have given up after the blizzard."

"This image you're painting of multiple buildings is most disturbing. Imagine how long it could take to construct them. Imagine the cost! The steel could be better spent helping the poor, rebuilding towns devastated by dragon attacks, paying soldiers in an army, funding…" She spun until her face was inches from Gair's. "Don't you realize this is all a frivolous waste of resources? If Goldmoon isn't senile, she must surely know that people, not this new order of mysticism, could make far better use of the money and effort."

Camilla scrutinized the elf. He looked like a twolegged bear in his hooded coat. She sighed and started to draw away, but he pulled her closer. "Gair, Goldmoon could have at least waited until spring when the weather was better. All the money and effort will be doubled if there are more fires and-"

"And perhaps the citadel will never be more than a dream," he said, "especially if this sabotage keeps up." He moved his face closer still until he could smell a hint of rose, something she washed her hair with. "If things get too bad, Camilla, maybe Goldmoon will take her project somewhere else. Then you'll have nothing to worry about."

"Will you go with her?"

The elf brought his slender fingers to her cheek, his thumb brushing her lips.

"Mornin', Commander, Mister Graymist," Willum interrupted as he hurried past toward a growing rank of soldiers. He drilled them each morning, though there were fewer today because several had accompanied the dwarves. "Cold one this mornin', isn't it? Cold enough to make your eyes freeze open."

The moment lost, Camilla stiffened and turned to watch the men.

"Good morning, Commander!" a tardy soldier chirped as he crisply saluted Camilla and rushed to find his place in line. The knight's eyes narrowed. She would reprimand the young man for his lateness when she returned this evening.

Gair tugged her away, noticing that she relaxed a little when they passed a high drift and the men were lost from view. He reached his hand to her face again as they slipped around another drift and were nearly knocked over by Orvago.

The gnoll grinned as he trundled by, growling a greeting to her and the elf. He was shuffling through the deep snow, making his own path and angling toward the building site, his bandaged arms wrapped around a bundle of wood dowels. Two shaggy mongrels followed him, light enough to scamper on top of the drifts. They barked and playfully nipped at each other's tails.

Camilla had seen the dogs before, hanging around the docks in town, though their ribs showed more prominently there. Even the four-legged strays had found their way to Goldmoon's settlement, she mused.

The gnoll barked at the dogs, and they barked back. One darted in front of Orvago, and he stumbled. Dowels went flying everywhere, landing in the snow, most of them sinking as if they were arrows shot from a bow. The gnoll howled, the dogs joined his chorus, and tardy risers poked their heads out of their tents to see what the ruckus was about.

"Hard to be alone here," he said too softly for her to hear.

"Wherever did this notion to build the citadel arise? Did you and Goldmoon spend months planning it?"

The elf gave a clipped laugh. "This Citadel of Light started as a vision," Gair began as he took her arm and steered her toward the main cook tent, where he was given a large basket of dried fish. "Goldmoon came up with the idea after she climbed the Silver Stair. She said she had a dream of dormitories for her students of mysticism, chapels, halls, lodging for visitors, stables, shrines, a great garden in the center, and in the very center of that the Silver Stair. Perhaps a moat around the entire complex, and…"

"And… ?"

"I guess the whole thing is pretty overwhelming."

"Sounds like a nightmare, not a dream."

The pair struck out toward the east now, plodding through the snow and making their own path as the gnoll had tried to do. It would take them perhaps a few hours to reach Heartspring walking through these heavy drifts. Without the snow, the trip of a few miles took little time.

"It's my turn to visit the village," Gair had told her. Someone from the settlement went to the farmers' village once a week or so to check on the families and to see if anyone needed healing. The blizzard and the fire had interfered with that routine. "I'm glad you agreed to come with me. I wanted to talk to you, to spend some time with you alone, and-"

"Gair!"

The elf turned to spot Iryl Songbrook plodding through the snow toward them, two Solamnic knights behind her. She was wrapped in a coat practically the color of the snow, her dark hair whipping out of the folds of her hood providing a sharp contrast. She was almost out of breath by the time she caught up to them.

"I was worried I'd missed you."

Gair gave her an impatient look.

"I'm going to Heartspring, too." She jangled her coin purse. "I need too see if the farmers have any more wool blankets to spare. Many of ours were lost in the fire. The ones you brought back with you from town helped, but-"

"I can do that for you," the elf volunteered.

"Nonsense!" she objected. "You'll be too preoccupied tending to the sick."

"You've brought these men to carry the blankets?"

She smiled at the elf. "Willum sent them. He said no one goes anywhere without protection. There's safety in numbers. He would've sent more, but he thought the commander would be satisfied with two."

Iryl brushed by the pair, taking the lead and forging the path through the snow. The lithe elf struggled in places, but he didn't sink as deep as the others and made a little better time. The knights fell in behind Gair and Camilla.

"So much for some time alone," Gair muttered under his breath.

The land between Goldmoon's settlement and the village of Heartspring was relatively flat, with a broad open stretch between two stands of pines and oaks. The snow that had blown to obscure the gently winding path gave character to the area, the drifts rising and falling like white waves captured on canvas with an artist's brushstrokes.